IT Management: Google, Intel, Microsoft Among Top-Paying IT Firms

Google

With a median starting salary of $82,600 and a median mid-career salary of $141,000, Google is 23 percent above the market pay for the IT industry.

Where do you stand the best chance of getting the best salary among the top American IT firms, and which companies will leave you the most satisfiedor stressed out? According to data released from PayScale, workers at Google earn the best pay relative to other tech companies, while Facebook employees are the most satisfied and those at IBM stay the longest. Overall, when holding all else constant, median pay for Google employees ($82,600 median starting pay) is 23 percent higher than similar workers performing similar roles at other companies and more than 10 percent higher than similar workers at the other big tech companies, according to PayScale's Technology Company Salary and Job Satisfaction Report, which examined the characteristics of the following tech companies (excluding retail workers): Amazon, Apple, Dell, Facebook, Google, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel and Microsoft. The "lowest" paid workers are at HP. Holding all else constant, workers at HP typically earn 5 percent less than similar workers at all other employers and about 15 percent less than similar workers at the other big tech companies. Here's a look at who's getting paid where, and what their work environments are like.

Nathan Eddy is Associate Editor, Midmarket, at eWEEK.com. Before joining eWEEK.com, Nate was a writer with ChannelWeb and he served as an editor at FierceMarkets. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.